Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ battles FT with new application

The Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones is launching a news app targeted at London’s City in a bid to steal the domestic readership of the Financial Times, writes Jane Martinson of The Guardian.

Martinson writes, “The mobile-only app will feature financial stories from the Times newspaper, which is part of the same News UK stable as Dow Jones, as well as the Journal and Financial News.

“Perhaps surprisingly, WSJ City will be free at launch despite using content from subscription-based news services such as the Times and WSJ. Dow Jones has long championed paid-for content in a battle with companies such as Google, which dominates online advertising.

“The forthcoming launch comes as further evidence that the Rupert Murdoch-owned company is focused on expanding in the British heartland of arch-rival the Financial Times, which was bought by Japan’s Nikkei in July.

“William Lewis, the Dow Jones chief executive, said: ‘Over time, we would like to occupy the territory the FT has ceded.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.